Need a Music-Making Program Here!

[Neon Streak]

Yo, I'm back! Did you miss me? 

On October 12th, my laptop died and with it all of my programs, files, and other important stuff. Since then I've gotten a new laptop and have been trying to recover every program that I lost...except one.

I am in need of a music-making program (And yes, I compose music too.) and your help is much appreciated. Here are some things that this program needs to have:

~An easy-to-use interface

~A visual way to lay down notes (Such as a piano roll)

~Ability to play .wav samples

Basically, I want a free alternative to FL Studio.

Do any of you know of such a program, and where can I download it?

[Vipershark]

Moved to Help Me.

Try LMMS

[Skyla Doragono]

If you want all that, it's not going to be free. Well, legally free.

I personally use Finale; 2014 is the best version I've ever used. I believe their website has a free demo you can try, but it will only allow for the default 31 measures in length, and you won't have the full instrumental suite. And it has on the fly playback, and you can export to .wav format.

[PatientZero]

What you're looking for is a DAW, Digital Audio Workstation, there are roughly around a billion different ones, and if you look them up there are swarms of people who will tell you why their favourite one is obviously the best one and the rest of them suck.

Look up Ardour, normally I'd supply a link but I can't get their main site to load right now, I've heard mixed things about it and I haven't tried it myself, but it is a fully featured DAW with all the plugin compatibility and support you might want, and it's free so hey, nothing to lose.

Unfortunately if you're serious about getting into ~the biz~ you're gonna learn pretty quick that the right tools for the job come with a price tag, I couldn't tell you how much I've sunk into software alone, and that's not even thinking about all the hardware. (side note: hardware is also much harder to pirate, tends to be what separates musicians and "DJ"s)

[Neon Streak]

Well, the reason I'm asking for a DAW is that before I lost my old laptop, I bought a copy of FL Studio and used it to make various songs with the included libraries as well as .wav instruments I ripped from various SNES Games. I've gotten pretty used to that program.

However, like most programs, when I bought FL Studio I had to insert a registration key. But I forgot what mine was (I'm an idiot; I didn't write the key down the first time I purchased it and installed it.) and I can't find it in my Email inbox due to Outlook getting an extreme makeover and me losing all of my contacts.

Which is why I'm wanting to find a free DAW that pretty much works the same as FL Studio, if not better, cuz I can't repurchase it.

[Skyla Doragono]

You can always contact the FL Studio website? As long as you can provide proof that you purchased it -- like a bank statement showing the transaction -- they should be able to help you get a new registration code.

[Petie]

You can always contact the FL Studio website?  As long as you can provide proof that you purchased it -- like a bank statement showing the transaction -- they should be able to help you get a new registration code.

Pretty much this. You may not even need that much verification. If you remember the email address used to purchase it and an approximate date of purchase, they'll likely be able to help you out.

[Nintendo's chosen hero]

hers a bunch of information I lerned from the magical internet resource knows as...Google.
http://routenote.com/blog/the-10-best-fr...available/
http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/b...-software/
http://www.homestudiocenter.com/best-free-audio-editor/
http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2015/11/...-software/
http://www.musictech.net/2015/10/the-5-b...ware-daws/
http://ehomerecordingstudio.com/best-daw-software/
A lot of these lists say some of the same things, and not everything on that last list is free, but thay all have at least one uniqe entry.

[Filler]

LMMS works pretty well, from what I've seen.

It's basically a freeware DAW. A bit weird to get used to, but at least it's free.